Friday I'm sending my Mark Levinson 380s off to Texas for an inspection and refurbishment. For the $1,000 I'll spend, I hope to get another 20 years of beautiful music which works out to about $50 bucks a year. The alternative is spending $10 to $15K to replace it ($500 to $750 a year). I like the $50 a year number and I love the sound of the 380s.
Amp repair cost — is this right?
I recently sent my Musical Fidelity a308cr power amp off to be recapped. This amp is somewhere around 16-18 years old and one of the power caps failed. I contacted Musical Fidelity and sent it to a repair shop they recommended. Today I received an estimate to replace 18 caps, 8 of which are large power caps, resolder the boards, and re-bias the transistors. Basically a full overhaul. The quote I received, including return shipping (prob around $100) Is over $1,300 which possibly exceeds the value of the amp. That doesn’t include the $115 it cost me to ship it out. Having never had an overhaul done on a power amp like this, I’m wondering if anyone with experience can tell me if this sounds right. I guess I was expecting something more like $600-$800 but I don’t know why since I really don’t have a frame of reference. Perhaps it was the assumption it might be 4 hours labor (say $400) plus max $200 for caps. Is $1,300+ on track? Either way I’m going to be out the shipping cost plus a $160 fee paid for the estimate.
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I'd contact Dave Cox at Puckerbrush Audio in Norway, ME for a quote:
(207) 653-6615. Eminently capable and honest. Sounds high to me. |
I finally received my Levinson 23.5 back from Pyramid Audio in Austin Texas. The left channel went out back in May, I got it packed up and shipped in early June, and got it back right before Halloween. They had some difficulty with the repair because my amp was a bit of a pain to get right. The total cost was $3700 not including shipping to them. It was a huge pita and although I am overall happy, it is a more money than brains exercise. If you are going to do this, only use UPS freight. I nearly had a disaster shipping to them using regular UPS but luckily I used a mega size Pelican hard case which was a $300 investment on its own. UPS freight guarantees it will ship on a pallet and not get rolled around on warehouse conveyor belts. Like I said, more money than brains and a big investment in an old amp. But I love it. |
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